Sunday, March 2, 2014

World of Coca Cola

After attending a wedding in Birmingham,
Alabama we planned to go visit the “capital of
the South” - Atlanta, Georgia.It’s about a 2 ½ hour drive from Birmingham and pretty
much a straight shot across one freeway.We planned to stay for 3 days in “Hotlanta” but we could only do
sightseeing for two of those days.You
see when we were there, Atlanta
was anything but “Hotlanta”.In fact, it
was “Damn Cold Lanta”.We spent our
third day there cooped up in a hotel room due to the heavy snow and an ice
storm.The whole city shut down for the
storm and there was nowhere to go and nothing to do.

But I digress…

When we first arrived in Atlanta we visited the World of Coca Cola.

Atlanta is the headquarters
for Coca Cola and of course they have a CokeMuseum.We visited the museum and enjoyed the mostly
self-guided tour very much.It’s a
pretty neat place that’s fun and informational about everything related to Coke
(not the illegal white powder, I mean the soft drink).

Dr. John Pemberton invented Coke in 1886.In 1891, Asa Candler bought this Company for
$2,300.In 1919, he sold Coca Cola for
$25 million.Today, Coca Cola is worth
$164 billion.

Dr. John

Pemberton

The Coca Cola Company keeps their secret recipe for Coke in
a heavily guarded vault at this location.This is the magical recipe that combines the Coca Cola syrup with
carbonated water and makes this delicious soft drink (which of course is bad
for your health but so addicting because it tastes so good).

Vault Entrance

Actual Vault

Sidenote.

A few years ago, a disgruntled secretary in the Coca Cola Company
stole a copy of the secret recipe and offered to sell it to a senior executive
at a rival company (Pepsi).You know
what the senior executive did?He called
the police and also informed the Coca Cola Chairman.That is what I call honesty and integrity in
business.

So at this museum, they have a fully functional but miniature
bottling plant.It produces 8 oz. glass bottles
of Coca-Cola.We were able to witness a
behind the scenes view of the actual bottling process. At the end of the tour,
every visitor gets a complimentary 8 oz. bottle of Coke.

Of course, the highlight of the tour is the immensely popular
tasting room. It was pure fun and we
couldn’t get enough. They have 5 stations to taste local soft drinks manufactured
by Coca-Cola around the world.Each
station represents a different continent and each “continent tasting station”
has countries listed and the Coca Cola products offered in that country.

You can sample any country’s drink that is made by Coca Cola.Add to that, you can drink as much as you
want without any time limits or quantity limits!

For example, the Asia tasting station had soft drinks made by
Coca Cola representing Japan
(2), Taiwan, Hong Kong, China,
India, and Thailand.Altogether, the tasting area must have had
over 100 different soft drinks to taste from…from around the world. If you
drink a full cup from each country, you cannot taste more than 10 samples.So we just took a few sips from each country and
we tasted more than 50 drinks from around the world.

Now which country’s Coca Cola product tastes the best? The
best in my opinion is “Bibo” made in South Africa. It is a combination of kiwi and mango. It’s the
best in my humble opinion and the people that I was with also liked it very
much.

The guaranteed worst is “Beverly”
made in Italy.This is not just my opinion but everyone’s
opinion. It’s clearly the worst drink in the tasting room and 100 out of 100
people will agree on that.If you are
ever in Italy,
don’t buy this drink (even though they don’t make it anymore).I would rather drink animal vomit than drink
“Beverly”
again.YUCK! (no, I won’t REALLY drink
animal vomit but you get my point).

Was there a Coca Cola drink representing India in the
tasting station room?Of course!

We tasted Thums Up…in Atlanta
of all places!The reviews for Thums Up
were actually pretty good from the fellow drinkers standing around me.Even I enjoyed it when compared to the other
drinks from around the world.

Towards the end of the tour, I was talking to the Floor
Supervisor in the Tasting Room.I told
him that I didn’t know that Thums Up was manufactured by Coca Cola.He said that Coke bought Thums Up in order to
become Number One in India.He said that Coke was originally Number Three
in India
behind Pepsi and Thums Up. He also said,
“We want to be Number One in every country in the world.”I was amazed at his knowledge of the
company’s products and also impressed with his company loyalty.

Thums Up to him!

(or should I say Thumbs Up?Never understood why the b was omitted in the name of the drink)

29 comments:

Thanks for your comments Karunesh. I did not know this is owned by Coca Cola until I visited their Museum’s tasting room. Thums up was originally owned by Parle Brothers and they sold this to Coca Cola in 1993 for $60 million.

When I used to visit Andhra Pradesh (before many years), I used to see many people drinking Thumbs Up. It was too strong for my taste. I don't think it was that popular in TN. At least I was not a fan of that drink.

Do you remember Gold Spot? I used to like that drink a lot. I visited the factory when I was in school. These days I drink fresh juices, mostly. But in May I drink anything that is cold :)

Looks like you had lotsa fun! wow! I once visited their factory in Chennai..and subsequently have drawn a plant design for them under one of my study paper- production mgt. It was fun. I wish I had gone to production/manufacturing sector.

Thanks of the virtual tour of the museum SG. It was very interesting to know. I will definitely try to visit this if I ever visit Atlanta. Tasting so many drinks from so many countries must be fun. That pepsi executive is so honest! Can't believe such men exist.

Glad that you had a great trip. The Coca Cola factory visit was interesting. Even I had read somewhere about the story of secrets of Coca Cola making being sold t Pepsi and how it never could happen.I still prefer Coke to Pepsi, and only like to drink it from their glass bottles, not through the plastic ones.The pictures are lovely.

Like the post very much and reminds me of a similar experience in a tea museum I visited in Ooty..they showed us all the procedures and at the end all the visitors were served with tea of various flavours..